User:JackTheSecond/sandbox

Scientific method

Thoughts in writing

One can do science without being able to explain the process philosophically perfectly fine./ One can explain the scientific process philosophically without touching on the idea of science just fine as well./ So too, one can learn about the idea of science, without actually understanding anything about how scientists work.

A Wikipedian trying their hand at philosophy

The problem with writing this article is that there are 3 or more scientific methods.

• scientific method, as in how science is practised
• scientific method, as described in philosophical discourse
• ... and scientific method, as it is used, pedagogically, in education

Notes on the article:

• At present, most notes on examples of the scientific method are on iteration; on how someone improved on theory or conclusions centuries later. These examples of iteration do more to build the myth of science, than to actually explain it.
• The section currently titled 'Scientific inquiry' seems to me like an attempt at a foundationally non-sequential explanation of the method of science. A worthwhile endeavour that is hampered by the (valid) need for the section on the 'Elements' to reflect a complete article, because of how method is taught in education.
• Confirmation/Reproducibility should probably wander into a new category on 'Scientific integrity', as it is not technically considered an element of 'method'. One can probably build the section from the corresponding article and, maybe, talk about 'Rhetoric' as well.

Perceived consensus:

• Do not change the lead paragraph without consensus on the talk page.

• The reading of how scientific method is taught in education should not be disrupted unduly, since it would confuse students. (Keep 'Elements of the scientific method' clean.)

• The article, since it is an oft visited one, may contain not strictly topical content, as long as it is confined to appropriate sections, held to a concise length, and put in context with the method of science. (The justification here is that people will use it to read further.)

• There is support for the statement "science is best understood through examples". This article explicitly encourages footnotes with examples. Since it is also edited quite a lot:
  • Example Footnotes should provide their own context when possible. Someone will change what they are attached to, and they will no longer make sense. And they will get deleted, despite being fundamentally *good*.
  • Example Footnotes should be in context with the use or, ideally, the advancement of 'method'.

Collection of useful statements on method

According to Fleck, scientists' work is based on a thought-style, that cannot be rationally reconstructed. It gets instilled through the experience of learning, and science is then advanced based on a tradition of shared assumptions held by what he called thought collectives. Fleck also claims this phenomenon to be largely invisible to members of the group.

• Commentary: If scientists are largely unaware of... what sociologists consider to be method, what weight can be attributed to their discussion? Why then do they consider their discourse valuable to science?

Nevertheless, predictions can have a huge influence on research, if constructed well. Stephen Hawking's paper Gravitationally Collapsed Objects of Very Low Mass (1971) for example took previous theory and observation and suggested the existence of a greater variety of objects by postulating how the currently known could fit together to produce more complete theory.

Lost, self-written, notes:

Method, and correctness

It has been pointed out that every rule of science has been broken at some point in the quest for knowledge. — It should also be pointed out, that following the "rules" will not imply correctness. Scientists will work on the same problem offering differing solutions, will offer scientific dissent, and some if not most will turn out to have been "incorrect" in their predictions. And this doesn't even have to mean that their method or their reasoning had been faulty.

A great past example of this is the fight over the existence of the atom, prior to its existence being definitively proven. In particular, the discourse between Max Plank (Plank constant), Boltzmann (Boltzmann constant) and Ernst Mach (Mach number), all eminent and very well accomplished scientists. Mach famously remarked after one of Boltzmann's lectures in 1897: "I don't believe that atoms exist!" — And from an epistemological viewpoint, he wasn't wrong then; you cannot just assume what is not yet proven. He suffered a stroke in 1898, retired prior to the discovery of the nucleus; and died in 1916, not having changed his opinion on the atoms existence.

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."

— Kuhn, quoting Max Planck's autobiography

In the ongoing process of science, someone will be "incorrect" with their hypothesis on the observational evidence proving our current understanding of the theory of relativity to be incomplete.

Hypotheses and theories

outline:

• formation
• hypotheses are predictions...
  • hypotheses are basically theories that do not assume the burden of proving themselves true
• theories
  • Theories are basically hypotheses that have been shown to be true via extensive evidence
  • I feel like this not being explained has great potential for confusion // same as explaining it does...

Hypothesis development

Main article: Hypothesis formation

Linus Pauling proposed that DNA might be a triple helix. This hypothesis was also considered by Francis Crick and James D. Watson but discarded. When Watson and Crick learned of Pauling's hypothesis, they understood from existing data that Pauling was wrong. and that Pauling would soon admit his difficulties with that structure.

A hypothesis is a suggested explanation of a phenomenon, or alternately a reasoned proposal suggesting a possible correlation between or among a set of phenomena.

Normally hypotheses have the form of a mathematical model. Sometimes, but not always, they can also be formulated as existential statements, stating that some particular instance of the phenomenon being studied has some characteristic and causal explanations, which have the general form of universal statements, stating that every instance of the phenomenon has a particular characteristic.

Scientists are free to use whatever resources they have – their own creativity, ideas from other fields, inductive reasoning, Bayesian inference, and so on – to imagine possible explanations for a phenomenon under study. Albert Einstein once observed that "there is no logical bridge between phenomena and their theoretical principles." Charles Sanders Peirce, borrowing a page from Aristotle (Prior Analytics, 2.25) described the incipient stages of inquiry, instigated by the "irritation of doubt" to venture a plausible guess, as abductive reasoning. The history of science is filled with stories of scientists claiming a "flash of inspiration", or a hunch, which then motivated them to look for evidence to support or refute their idea. Michael Polanyi made such creativity the centerpiece of his discussion of methodology.

William Glen observes that

the success of a hypothesis, or its service to science, lies not simply in its perceived "truth", or power to displace, subsume or reduce a predecessor idea, but perhaps more in its ability to stimulate the research that will illuminate ... bald suppositions and areas of vagueness.

— William Glen, The Mass-Extinction Debates

In general, scientists tend to look for theories that are "elegant" or "beautiful". Scientists often use these terms to refer to a theory that is following the known facts but is nevertheless relatively simple and easy to handle. Occam's Razor serves as a rule of thumb for choosing the most desirable amongst a group of equally explanatory hypotheses.

To minimize the confirmation bias that results from entertaining a single hypothesis, strong inference emphasizes the need for entertaining multiple alternative hypotheses.

Predictions from the hypothesis

Further information: Prediction § Science

James D. Watson, Francis Crick, and others hypothesized that DNA had a helical structure. This implied that DNA's X-ray diffraction pattern would be 'x shaped'. This prediction followed from the work of Cochran, Crick and Vand (and independently by Stokes). The Cochran-Crick-Vand-Stokes theorem provided a mathematical explanation for the empirical observation that diffraction from helical structures produces x-shaped patterns. In their first paper, Watson and Crick also noted that the double helix structure they proposed provided a simple mechanism for DNA replication, writing, "It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material".

Any useful hypothesis will enable predictions, by reasoning including deductive reasoning. It might predict the outcome of an experiment in a laboratory setting or the observation of a phenomenon in nature. The prediction can also be statistical and deal only with probabilities.

It is essential that the outcome of testing such a prediction be currently unknown. Only in this case does a successful outcome increase the probability that the hypothesis is true. If the outcome is already known, it is called a consequence and should have already been considered while formulating the hypothesis.

If the predictions are not accessible by observation or experience, the hypothesis is not yet testable and so will remain to that extent unscientific in a strict sense. A new technology or theory might make the necessary experiments feasible. For example, while a hypothesis on the existence of other intelligent species may be convincing with scientifically based speculation, no known experiment can test this hypothesis. Therefore, science itself can have little to say about the possibility. In the future, a new technique may allow for an experimental test and the speculation would then become part of accepted science.

For example, Einstein's theory of general relativity makes several specific predictions about the observable structure of spacetime, such as that light bends in a gravitational field, and that the amount of bending depends in a precise way on the strength of that gravitational field. Arthur Eddington's observations made during a 1919 solar eclipse supported General Relativity rather than Newtonian gravitation.

x

• Title of section: Introduction
  • Note: totally not about the demarcation problem, but really all about the demarcation problem.
• Overview of the article -- ???
• History (move Dewey and everything since to philosophy...)
• Elements of inquiry
  • Observation
  • Hypothesis
  • Experimentation
  • Theory
• Elements of reason
  • Deductive & inductive reasoning
  • Confirmation theory
    • is accurate (the trivial)
    • is consistent, both internally and with other relevant currently accepted theories
    • has unificatory power; as in it's organizing otherwise confused and isolated phenomena)
    • has explanatory power, meaning its consequences should extend beyond the data it is required to explain
    • observes parsimony
    • has formal elegance
    • is fruitful for further research
  • Hypotheses formation ... where theories are truth, hypotheses are a way to find truth--and therefore advice regarding them will not be on what truth looks like but on how to find it
    • is invariant (
• Elements of integrity
  • ...done for now
• Elements of sociology
  • Fleck leading into... ???

Elements of reason

There have always been thoughts on the demarcation problem of distinguishing science from non-science. How to best formulate any kind of rules of reasoning to fit modern science or which of them are important is up to debate. The following may serve as useful perspective or inspiration.

Elements of communication

See also: Scientific community and Scholarly communication

Science is a hugely successful human enterprise, and progress almost always takes more than a single person to achieve. Scientists cooperate either directly through peer review or indirectly by building on previous work, such as previous theory and observation. In modern and especially big science, when hundreds of researchers across multiple institutions are working on solving aspects of the same problem, intercommunication takes on new dimensions. The availability of not only experimental data but data in general is an element. Observation can span the globe, as in the case of seismology and, yes, weather forecasting. New Hypotheses become old hypotheses faster, the more people work on crafting new theory. And experiments at Cern or on the International Space Station are planned far in advance, given a time-slot, and not ever done by the proposing scientist.

[Example on citizen science? Something about large scale observation...]

Thought collectives

Communication and community are so important to science in fact, sociologists have studied scientific ideas, and their emergence and life within a community of scientists. The sociology of knowledge is a concept in the discussion around scientific method, claiming the underlying method of science to be sociological. King explains that sociology distinguishes here between the system of ideas that govern the sciences through an inner logic, and the social system in which those ideas arise.

A perhaps accessible lead into what is claimed is Fleck's thought, echoed in Kuhn's concept of normal science. According to Fleck, scientists' work is based on a thought-style, that gets instilled through education and cannot be rationally reconstructed. It gets instilled through the experience of learning, and science is then advanced based on a tradition of shared assumptions held by what he called thought collectives. Fleck also claims this phenomenon to be largely invisible to members of the group.

Fleck also suggested that members of different circles of thought tend to talk past one another, which stands in context with his more widely accepted gestation periods. Before Fleck, scientific fact was thought to spring fully formed (in the view of Max Jammer, for example), when a gestation period is now recognized to be essential before acceptance of a phenomenon as fact. Following Fleck, the thought collectives within the respective fields will then have to settle on common specialized terminology, publish their results and further intercommunicate with their colleagues, in order to progress.

Elements of sociology

See also: Sociology of knowledge

The sociology of knowledge is concerned with "the relationship between human thought and the social context in which it arises." So, on this reading, the sociology of science may be taken to be considered with the analysis of the social context of scientific thought. But scientific thought, most sociologists concede, is distinguished from other modes of thought precisely by virtue of its immunity from social determination — insofar as it is governed by reason rather than by tradition, and insofar as it is rational it escapes determination by "non-logical" social forces.

— M. D. King leading into his article on Reason, tradition, and the progressiveness of science (1971)

The sociology of knowledge is a concept in the discussion around scientific method, claiming the underlying method of science to be sociological. King explains that sociology distinguishes here between the system of ideas that govern the sciences through an inner logic, and the social system in which those ideas arise.

A perhaps accessible lead into what is claimed is Fleck's thought, echoed in Kuhn's concept of normal science. According to Fleck, scientists' work is based on a thought-style, that cannot be rationally reconstructed. It gets instilled through the experience of learning, and science is then advanced based on a tradition of shared assumptions held by what he called thought collectives. Fleck also claims this phenomenon to be largely invisible to members of the group.

Thomas Kuhn argued that changes in scientists' views of reality not only contain subjective elements, but result from group dynamics, "revolutions" in scientific practice which result in paradigm shifts. As an example, Kuhn suggested that the heliocentric "Copernican Revolution" replaced the geocentric views of Ptolemy not because of empirical failures, but because of a new "paradigm" that exerted control over what scientists felt to be the more fruitful way to pursue their goals.

It has since been pointed out sensibly, if not necessarily neutrally, that a sociological view of what scientists are unaware of in the first place might not matter to the progress of science in the first place.<Staddon 2020?> — The sociological argument is that being unaware of ones process does not in any way imply the non-existence of biases and that looking at sociological biases is therefore relevant.<Post-positivist literature> ... Fleck has also pointed out that members of different circles of thought tend to talk past one another, offering an explanation for what by the 1990s had grown into a quite heated argument.

Certainty, probabilities, and statistical inference

See also: Probabilistic reasoning

Claims of scientific truth can be opposed in three ways: by falsifying them, by questioning their certainty, or by asserting the claim itself to be incoherent. Incoherence, here, means internal errors in logic, like stating opposites to be true; falsification is what Popper would have called the honest work of conjecture and refutation — certainty, perhaps, is where difficulties in telling truths from non-truths arise most easily.

Measurements in scientific work are also usually accompanied by estimates of their uncertainty. The uncertainty is often estimated by making repeated measurements of the desired quantity. Uncertainties may also be calculated by consideration of the uncertainties of the individual underlying quantities used. Counts of things, such as the number of people in a nation at a particular time, may also have an uncertainty due to data collection limitations. Or counts may represent a sample of desired quantities, with an uncertainty that depends upon the sampling method used and the number of samples taken.

In the case of measurement imprecision, there will simply be a 'probable deviation' expressing itself in a study's conclusions. Statistics are different. Inductive statistical generalisation will take sample data and extrapolate more general conclusions, which has to be justified — and scrutinised.

Beyond commonly associated survey methodology the concept together with probabilistic reasoning is used to advance fields of science where research objects have no definitive states of being. For example, in statistical mechanics. The principles of data management and stewardship can play a role in communication and review also.

Lack of familiarity with statistical methodologies can result in erroneous conclusions. For instance, extrapolating from a single scientific observation, such as "This experiment yielded these results, so it should apply broadly," exemplifies inductive wishful thinking. Statistical generalisation is a form of inductive reasoning. Conversely, assuming that a specific outcome will occur based on general trends observed across multiple experiments, as in "Most experiments have shown this pattern, so it will likely occur in this case as well," illustrates faulty deductive probability logic

In statistical analysis, expected and unexpected bias is a large factor. Research questions, the collection of data, or the interpretation of results, all are subject to larger amounts of scrutiny than in comfortably logical environments. One could even say that awareness of potential biases is more important than the hard logic; errors in logic are easier to find in peer review, after all.

Claims to rational knowledge, and especially statistics, have to be put into their appropriate context. Simple statements such as '9 out of 10 doctors recommend' are therefore not strictly scientific because they do not justify their methodology.

Probabilistic reasoning

Main article: Probabilistic reasoning

Probabilistic reasoning is used to advance fields of science where research objects have no definitive states of being. Examples include atomic theory, mechanical physics

See also

• Reasoning by scientific field
  • Knowledge representation and reasoning (AI)

Reasoning by xxx

• Analytic reasoning
• Logical reasoning

There have been different opinions and attempts at explaining how scientific progress is achieved. Mostly in the context of the discourse surrounding the scientific method. Articles on the topic include:

• Scientific method
  • #education
• Quasi-empirical method

Currently popular theories include:

• Post-positivism
• Anti-formalism: (Feyerabend, 1975)
• Sociology of scientific knowledge
  • Social constructivism
  • Normal science/Paradigm shift (Kuhn, 1962)
  • Post-normal science
  • Thought collectives (Fleck, 1935)

• Former/outdated/un-popular theories of reason:
  • Empiricism
  • Aristotelianism
  • ...
  • Positivism and specifically: Logical positivism
  • Falsificationism (Popper, 1934 and 59/Lakatos)
  • Verificationism

It has since been pointed out sensibly, if not necessarily neutrally, that a sociological view of what scientists are unaware of in the first place might not matter to the progress of science in the first place.<Staddon 2020?> -- The sociological argument is that being unaware of ones process does not in any way imply the non-existence of biases and that looking at sociological biases is therefore relevant.<Post-positivist literature> ... Fleck has also pointed out that members of different circles of thought tend to talk past one another, offering an explanation for what by the 1990s had grown into a quite heated argument.

Funny way to write a History

Main article: History of scientific method

The history of scientific method considers changes in the methodology of scientific inquiry, as distinct from the history of science itself. The development of rules for scientific reasoning has not been straightforward; scientific method has been the subject of intense and recurring debate throughout the history of science, and eminent natural philosophers and scientists have argued for the primacy of one or another approach to establishing scientific knowledge.

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."

— Kuhn, quoting Max Planck's autobiography

Not to give preference to some of the great thinkers over all the others, we will not attempt a condensed history of past methods of science here. Beyond general impossibility, it may not even matter that much.

For a selection of great historic experiments, see § Notes: Problem-solving via scientific method.

For historic expressions, see § Notes: Philosophical expressions of method.

Aristotle has been called the "founder of...", but been generally

The Islamic golden age has been largely ignored by European scholars in favour of their own history of achievement; and potential far eastern influence on it even more so.

Einstein called Galileo, whose work he had built on, the father of modern science.

monster

This might either be my next radical idea, or a quite good one that nobody has thought about doing yet...

I believe the History section is always going to frame the 'myth' of science better than the method of science itself. We should remove it, and we don't even lose that much by doing so. We can move the section on the current discussion into the 'Philosophy' section pretty much as is, and scatter the rest throughout the article.

We're doing just fine selling the myth of science in the other sections (which, for the record, I think is useful, positive, inspiration).

It seems to me as if the history of the 'History' section was that of first growing into a monster before discussion rectified that. It then tried... hard, at not really being a history section at all, before being cut dramatically again. It's now in a bit of a weird state, looking unfinished and with a focus on recent debate.

I gave it a structure to guide re-expansion, but do feel like we should discuss either removing it completely as I suggested or moving it to the bottom until someone feels like doing the re-expansion.

I also want to argue that anything that is 'current discussion' is not (strictly) history, and would be better covered in context; so should be moved, regardless of deletion or not, into the section on 'philosophy' entirely. This would also prevent duplication.

Dewey and Education (snippets of unused material)

The first measure of... everything should be 'usefulness'. The first question should be: 'is it useful?' and the immediate second 'why is it useful?' This way, when approaching an understanding of Dewey's sequential elements of scientific method (1910), we can put his reasoning in light of his other publications, like Industrialised Education (1916).

Dewey saw the need to canonise education, to industrialise it, in order to guarantee the well-forming of the next generation. He espoused that:

It is no accident that all democracies have put a high estimate upon education; that schooling has been their first care and enduring charge. Only through education can equality of opportunity be anything more than a phrase. Accidental inequalities of birth, wealth, and learning are always tending to restrict the opportunities of some as compared with those of others. Only free and continued education can counteract those forces which are always at work to restore, in however changed a form, feudal oligarchy. Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.

— The Need of an Industrial Education in an Industrial Democracy (1916)

His assumption was systematisation would lead to broader understanding.

Today, a great many teachers complain that they 'love teaching but hate education' because of how Dewey's idea of method, and the associated ideas on industrialised education, have dominated education, and because the way thought works has little to do with sequential organisation. A systematised approach might look reliable from an administrative standpoint, but a teacher's mind does not work best with a sequence of planned lessons, and it has been suggested that an 'individual education plan' should be considered not just for the student.

Scientific thought, like any other, is fostered purely by immersion in subject matter, and trying to classify its nature objectively may well be impossible. One immerses oneself in a field of inquiry and, through continued yet measured exposure the nature of which can be quite individual in degree,

Lead section

• relevant discussion archived here

[The scientific method is a] method of procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses[.]

— oxforddictionaries.com (source 2)

The citation for the The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on "Scientific Method"

Lead (historical contextualization)

The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that emphasises rational thought. It first gained prominence during the scientific revolution of the 17th century as an expansion on early empiricism, and has characterized the development of the sciences since. It is often characterized by systematic observation and experimentation, inductive and deductive reasoning, and the formation and testing of hypotheses and theories.

The idea of method was expanded upon by the logical positivists in the 19th century, who introduced the idea that a hypothesis ought to be 'falsifiable'. In the following century, the debate between realism and anti-realism further defined what we consider scientific methodology today.

In the early 19th century, method was canonized and introduced as an educational tool to teach the idea of science. And in the following century, debate on whether method, as a unified theory, was useful to actual science developed.

In the 1990s... [write a paragraph that gets around the not-at-all-useful term 'science wars']

Today the majority consensus gravitates towards some form of pluralism, that espouses that it is more useful for different branches of science to come up with their own way of doing things, because of how they individually understand their field. (terrible, but the idea is on the page)

This majority is opposed by the unificationists and the nihilists, who advocate degrees of either a unified methodology or find the idea of method not at all useful.

Where there is consensus is the fact that how method is taught has more to do with conveying the 'ideas' of science, and little if anything to do with how scientists actually work.

Lead, minimal changes

The scientific method is a scholarly method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of the sciences since at least the 17th century. It is often characterized by systematic observation and experimentation, inductive and deductive reasoning, and the formation and testing of hypotheses and theories.

Although procedures vary from one field of inquiry to another, the underlying process is frequently the same from one field to another. It involves careful observation coupled with rigorous scepticism, because cognitive assumptions can distort initial perceptions. Scientific inquiry includes formulating hypotheses, via inductive reasoning; the testing deductions drawn from the hypotheses through experimental and statistical analysis; and refinement (or elimination) of the hypotheses based on the experimental findings. And, though these are often presented as a fixed sequence of steps, they represent rather a set of general principles. Not all steps take place in every scientific inquiry (nor to the same degree), and they are not always in the same order.

Discussion on the method of science first gained prominence during the scientific revolution with the advancement of early empiricism, as argued for by Francis Bacon, rationalism, especially as advocated by René Descartes and inductivism, rising to particular prominence with Isaac Newton and his followers.

Current discussion includes the post-modern refutations of formalised method, proposed by Paul Feyerabend; falsificationism, an early proponent of which was Frank Popper; postpositivism, influenced by Thomas Kuhn; and the continuing discussion on the universality of scientific method in science education, that is built on hypothetico-deductivism as advocated by Dewey.

Leftovers on a short history

Beginning in the 19th century, the idea of the method of science became more formalised with hypothetico-deductivism, which, by the early 20th century, was adopted as the scientific method as taught in education.

By the mid 20th century, falsificationism, an early proponent of which was Frank Popper, rose as an important discussion alongside the post-modern refutations of formalised method, advocated for by Paul Feyerabend.

21th century discussion has been shaped by (re-)interpretations of Thomas Kuhn's views on scientific advancement as an alternating cycle of normal science and revolution; and the attempts at formulating the field of science studies.

New lead

The scientific method is a method of procedure that has characterized the sciences since the scientific revolution of the 17th century. It is often characterized by systematic observation and experimentation, reasoned thought, and the formation and testing of hypotheses.

Yet, though the scientific method is often presented as a fixed sequence of steps, it represents rather a set of general principles. Some even consider alternative definitions like thinking of it more like a 'social construct' more useful. Not all steps take place in every scientific inquiry (nor to the same degree), and they are not always in the same order.

Since different approaches to understanding are useful to different fields, this article will endeavour to provide three different approaches. (wordy, I know)

• #Canonical elements, the elements in sequence
• #Scientific inquiry, an attempt at concise explanation
• #Philosophy and sociology, the philosophical approach

_____

My sectioning would include the following {About} headers:

...

This section is about the canonical elements of the scientific method. For a less sequential explanation, see § Scientific Inquiry. For the philosophical approach, see § Philosophy and sociology of science.

...

This section is about the less sequential explanation of the scientific method. For the sequential explanation, see § Canonical elements. For the philosophical approach, see § Philosophy and sociology.

...

This section is about the philosophical approach. For the sequential one, see § Canonical elements. For the concise, normal one, see § Scientific inquiry.

Scientific integrity

For broader coverage of this topic, see Scientific integrity.

y

The canonical elements, the 'sequence' of steps, consist of careful characterizations a hypothesis that allows for predictions, which are then tested in experiments; the results of which can then be iterated upon by peers.

New lead (snippets)

The scientific method is the sociological framework that has characterized the sciences since the 17th century. It is the idea that following a method of procedure is what leads to scientific progress. It involves...

The scientific method is a method of procedure that states that careful characterization leading to the testing of hyphoseses is the core of scientific inquiry.

The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that emphasises rational thought. It first gained prominence during the scientific revolution as an expansion on early empiricism, and has characterized the development of the sciences since.

Its emergence developed the Aristotelian model of early empiricism and challenged scholasticism with an increasing emphasis on rational thought.

Though the scientific method is often presented as a fixed sequence of steps, it represents rather a set of general principles. Not all steps take place in every scientific inquiry (nor to the same degree), and they are not always in the same order.

The method builds upon careful characterizations a hypothesis that allows for predictions, which are then tested in experiments. The results can then be iterated upon and confirmed by peers.

Old lead

The scientific method involves careful observation coupled with rigorous scepticism, because cognitive assumptions can distort the interpretation of the observation. Scientific inquiry includes creating a hypothesis through inductive reasoning, testing it through experiments and statistical analysis, and adjusting or discarding the hypothesis based on the results.

Although procedures vary from one field of inquiry to another, the underlying process is frequently the same. The process in the scientific method involves making conjectures (hypothetical explanations), deriving predictions from the hypotheses as logical consequences, and then carrying out experiments or empirical observations based on those predictions. A hypothesis is a conjecture based on knowledge obtained while seeking answers to the question. The hypothesis might be very specific or it might be broad. Scientists then test hypotheses by conducting experiments or studies. A scientific hypothesis must be falsifiable, implying that it is possible to identify a possible outcome of an experiment or observation that conflicts with predictions deduced from the hypothesis; otherwise, the hypothesis cannot be meaningfully tested.

The purpose of an experiment is to determine whether observations agree or disagree with hypothesis.

BBC independence, impartiality and conduct

• BBC News#Political and commercial independence very good section

Opinions

Seaton writes that the Thatcher government increasingly politicised appointments for the governorship of the BBC. In her view, Marmaduke Hussey's appointment to the chairmanship was politically motivated and caused great, and negative, disruption.

Cases

Some notable examples include reporting of the 1926 General Strike, the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939,

R

• Seaton, Jean (2021). "The BBC: Guardian of Public Understanding". Guardians of Public Value. Cham: Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-51701-4_4. ISBN 978-3-030-51700-7. PMC 7658670.
• Curran, James; Seaton, Jean (2018). Power Without Responsibility. Abingdon, Oxon New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 205–208. ISBN 978-0-415-71042-8. (sections attributed in the index)
• Deacon, David (2012). "'A QUIETENING EFFECT'?: The BBC and the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939)". Media History. 18 (2). doi:10.1080/13688804.2012.663866. ISSN 1368-8804.
• "Keeping BBC Unfettered". Economic and Political Weekly. 3 (44). Economic and Political Weekly: 1680. 1968. ISSN 0012-9976. JSTOR 4359258. Retrieved 2024-03-14.

BBC

The 2017 Charter

Independence

The BBC must be independent in all matters concerning the fulfilment of its Mission and the promotion of the Public Purposes, particularly as regards editorial and creative decisions, the times and manner in which its output and services are supplied, and in the management of its affairs.

— Article 3 of the BBC Charter, 2016^a

Independence is the core tenant of the institution that is the BBC. The royal charter of 2017 lists it first, right after the name of the corporation (1) and the date the charter is to take effect (2); before even establishing what the Mission and Public Purposes are. Its editorial independence is limited only by its mission of impartiality in the public interest.

The service was always known to be steadfast in its independence, despite there having been serious attempts by the government to interfere with the services' independence. The chief historic example is the Suez crisis of 1959. This struggle is an ongoing one. Blumler in July 2016 collected some of the more recent concerns over the services' independence and indicated worry over some of the changes made to the charter. Several papers have expressed similar opinions.

Mission and Public Purposes

The Mission of the BBC is to act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain.

— Article 5 of the BBC Charter, 2016^a

That is how the BBC's mission is set out in the royal charter of 2017. Set out right after (6), the BBC's public purposes are, broadly, to provide news and information, to support learning and to strive for high-quality creating content. Interestingly, the charter explicitly allows for "creative risk" to be taken, giving the institution much more liberty in that regard than otherwise.

More generally, it is to support diversity and the creative economy across the United Kingdom; and it is to reflect its culture and values to the world.

The perhaps most debated tenant of course is the BBC's impartiality. Both left-and right-leaning observers have accused the institution of bias in the past, and the question has its own section in the article on the criticism of the BBC, where alleged biases on various national and international events are discussed.

Later (11), it is clarified that the BBC is to "seek to avoid adverse impacts on competition which are not necessary for the effective fulfilment of the Mission and the promotion of the Public Purposes", also.

Governance and regulation

The 2017 Charter establishes the BBC Board as the governing body, and expanded the scope of Ofcom, fully established in the Communications Act 2003, to include the BBC. Ofcom thus took the regulatory functions formerly held by the previous iteration of the BBC Board, the BBC Trust, which itself had replaced the original Board of Governors of the BBC in 2007. The government is to give it "guidance" on the "content requirements" to be set, also—considered a "key element" of the charter by the BBC.

Other

The BBC itself lists the following other points as "key elements" of the charter:

• A new "unitary board" consisting of four government appointed members and a Chair, and nine BBC appointed members, to consider any "issues or complaints that arise post-transmission".
• Editorial decisions to "remain the responsibility of the Director-General".
• The possibility of production by independent companies to exist for all BBC programmes except news and some parts of current affairs.
• The National Audit Office to have a "stronger role" in looking at how the BBC spends its money.

History

AND WHEREAS it has been made to appear to Us that more than two million persons in our Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland have applied for and taken out Licences to instal and work apparatus for wireless telegraphy for the purpose of receiving Broadcast programmes[.]

— George the Fifth, Royal Charter for 1927

The 1927 Charter incorporated the BBC as independent from the Government in a similar way to institutions like the Bank of England. With a royal charter—not as a governmental department, and therefore independent of it. It established the Board of Governors of the BBC and the Postmaster General was set to supervise and give license to the broadcaster. Interestingly the charter did not spell out 'independence' as such, yet.

In 1937, after having been made to appear that 7,5 million persons now used wireless telegraphy, George the Sixth had the Postmaster General continue giving Licence to the BBC.

After several subsequent charters, the 1981 Charter moved the responsibilities of Licencing the BBC to an unspecified Secretary of State. The 1997 Charter specified the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.

The BBC shall be independent in all matters concerning the content of its output, the times and manner in which this is supplied, and in the management of its affairs.

— Elizabeth the Second

Though it is held that the BBC had throughout the history of broadcasting held a greater degree of independence than other West European broadcasters, comparing the different charters, that editorial independence had developed as part of the 'object' and 'governance' of the corporation and thus largely in implication. The 2007 Charter was the first to spell it out in a manner separate.

The 2007 Charter transformed the Board of Governors into the BBC Trust.

Notes

a.^ ^ This article usually refers to different charters by their effective dates and not by the date they were passed into law. So, while they all took effect on 1 January of their respective years, they, naturally, were passed into law before their effective date and are thus dated in the year prior.
The 2016 Charter itself writes in section 2.5: "In this article, "the 2006 Charter" means the Royal Charter for the continuance of the BBC which came into force on 1st January 2007." This page does not follow that convention, as the effective date works better as historical reference.

Works cited

• Goodwin, Peter (2005). "Low Conspiracy? – Government interference in the BBC1". Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture. 2 (1): 96–118. doi:10.16997/wpcc.10. ISSN 1744-6708.

Feminist art

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This page is about the art as such. For the associated political movement, see Feminist art movement.

Feminist art is a movement in art born of motivated functions and thematically focussed on the empowerment of women. It does so by highlighting the societal and political differences women experience in their lives.

Media used range from traditional art forms such as painting to more unorthodox methods such as performance art, conceptual art, body art, craftivism, fiber art, video art and film. Feminist art has served as an innovative driving force toward expanding the definition of art by incorporating new media and a new perspective.

Lede 2

This page is about the political movement. For the art as such, see Feminist art. For the article specific to the United States, see Feminist art movement in the United States.

The political feminist art movement arose out of the feminist movement of the 1960s and 70s and strives

The feminist art movement refers to the efforts and accomplishments of feminists internationally to produce art that reflects women's lives and experiences, as well as to change the foundation for the production and perception of contemporary art. It also seeks to bring more visibility to women within art history and art practice. The movement challenges the traditional hierarchy of arts over crafts, which views hard sculpture and painting as superior to the narrowly perceived 'women's work' of arts and crafts such as weaving, sewing, quilting and ceramics. Women artists have overturned the traditional view by, for example, using unconventional materials in soft sculptures, new techniques such as stuffing, hanging and draping, and for new purposes such as telling stories of their own life experiences. The objectives of the feminist art movement are thus to deconstruct the traditional hierarchies, represent women more fairly and to give more meaning to art. It helps construct a role for those who wish to challenge the mainstream (and often masculine) narrative of the art world. Corresponding with general developments within feminism, and often including such self-organizing tactics as the consciousness-raising group, the movement began in the 1960s and flourished throughout the 1970s as an outgrowth of the so-called second wave of feminism. It has been called "the most influential international movement of any during the postwar period."

Debate on democracy/Criticism of democracy

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All debate on democracy can be understood, neutrally, as critical theory as it applies to the arguments on democracy. The field's more academic name is critical democratic theory.

There are both internal critics (those who call upon the constitutional regime to be true to its own highest principles) and external ones who reject the values embraced and nurtured by constitutional democracy; and both can have valuable, if not necessarily valid, arguments.

Criticism of democracy has been a key part of democracy, its functions and development throughout history. Plato famously opposed democracy, arguing for a 'government of the best qualified'; James Maddison extensively studied the historic attempts at and arguments on democracy in his preparation for the Constitutional Convention; and Winston Churchill remarked that "No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

Critics of democracy have often tried to highlight democracy's inconsistencies, paradoxes, and limits by contrasting it with other forms of governments, such as a less democratic epistocracy or a more democratic lottocracy. They have characterized most modern democracies as democratic polyarchies and democratic aristocracies; they have identified fascist moments in modern democracies; they have termed the societies produced by modern democracies as neo-feudal; while yet others have contrasted democracy with fascism, anarcho-capitalism, theocracy, and absolute monarchy.

Leading contemporary thinkers in critical democratic theory include Jürgen Habermas, Robert A. Dahl, Robert E. Goodin, Bernard Manin, Joseph Schumpeter, James S. Fishkin, Ian Shapiro, Jason Brennan, Hélène Landemore, and Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

Historical figures associated with the critique of democracy include Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Montesquieu, Thomas Hobbes, James Harrington, Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, Martin Heidegger, Hubert Lagardelle, Charles Maurras, Friedrich Nietzsche, Carl Schmitt, Oswald Spengler, Julius Evola, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, and Nicolás Gómez Dávila.

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Works cited

• Madison, James (1863) [22 November 1787]. Dawson (ed.). "Federalist No. 10". The Federalist.